Pride members and Allies Stay Vigilant Against Rising Threats
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Dr. Jei Africa says he and his colleagues have a responsibility to fight injustice.
“Doc,” as intimates call the licensed psychologist, has been preoccupied. Fifteen months ago, he assumed the post of Director of the County of San Mateo Health System Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Department, overseeing a staff of 500 serving 800,000 residents of 25 cities plus unincorporated areas.
Where there’s a civil disturbance or criminal activity, his teams are the first responders on mental health, giving comfort and healing, connecting those in need to appropriate resources.
Africa is a top-ranking Filipino American in the mainland county with one of the highest concentrations of Filipinos. He is also the first known department leader who is transgender. His professional success reflects the strides made by people whose identity differs from their birth gender.
Although he is a pioneer as a department head who is transgender, he has distinguished company in many who openly identify as LGBTQIA+.
Think of US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a US Navy veteran who is married to a man. As is White House Liaison and Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives for the Office of Personnel Management Jason Tengco, one of the first appointees of color of the Biden-Harris administration. The Fil-Am political strategist and his husband met at a White House youth leadership conference in 2012, reunited three years later and made their union legal at the San Francisco City Hall as COVID restrictions eased in July 2021, according to The New York Times.
Open and Vocal
Consider Colorado third-term State Rep. Brianna Titone, who leads her Assembly’s majority caucus. She knew at age seven that she was transgender, per the Denver Post, and was inspired to run for public office by Danica Roehm, the first transgender legislator in the United States when she was elected in 2017 in Virginia.
Think US Rep. Mark Takano, the first known out gay Asian American in Congress when he was elected 11 years ago. Or South San Francisco’s first male Asian American mayor, James Coleman, the youngest person ever elected to the City Council at 21, who identifies as bisexual.
South SF Mayor James Coleman and City Council Member Flor Nicolas lead their city’s contingent at the San Mateo County Pride March. (Photo courtesy of Mayor James Coleman)
The Philippines has Bataan lawmaker Geraldine Roman, who in 2016 broke the barrier for transgender people seeking to represent their province in the Batasan, or the Philippine Congress.
Also in the Philippines, singer and ex-chair of the country’s National Youth Commission Ice Seguerra continues to enjoy popularity after transitioning from birth identity as Aiza Seguerra. So does now US-based Jake Zyrus, formerly known as Charice Pempengco, who starred on the hit series Glee.
They’re the visible members of the LGBTQI+ community – unafraid and unapologetically living their truth. They are a diverse population, hence the various letters representing their specific identities: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Intersex.
They are as diverse as they are non-binary, not “cisgender” -- for the Latin prefix “cis” meaning “on this side of” individuals whose gender identity and sexual orientation correspond to their natural sex. Non-binary folks comprise the collective “Pride,” people who identify outside the conformist male-female gender classification.
They represent various generations and cultures, embrace and avoid terms referencing their population. Not everyone, for example, abides the term “queer,” the general term reclaimed from its negative definition by many in the rainbow field.
Victories
You would think the population has fulfilled its aspirations to be equal -- accepted more than tolerated, welcomed even this year being the 55th spring since the Stonewall Uprising triggered the first annual marches for equality in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
It took over three decades later in 2004 before then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom thumbed his nose on conservatives and “like it or not,” his defiant proclamation reverberated in newsclips afterwards, officiated same-sex weddings in City Hall. The U.S. Supreme Court enshrined same-sex marriage toward the end of the Obama administration in June 2015, when it decided 5-4 to require all states to allow same-sex marriages and recognize those granted in other states.
It’s hard to forget Jay Mercado and Shirl Tan, who were caught in the legal battle between proponents and foes of marriage equality. They made headlines around the country, landed on the cover of People Magazine and were interviewed by CNN, when then-US Rep. Jackie Speier and the late US Sen. Dianne Feinstein intervened for them in a complex, protracted case. In 2009, immigration authorities tried to deport Tan, a Philippine national, who had married Mercado, now a US citizen, in 2004, after Newsom's defiant authorization of same-sex marriage in San Francisco.
Shirl Tan and Jay Mercado overcame legal challenges to their union of 35 years.
Their union weathered legal winds, and last year Tan was granted permanent residence.
Risks Rising
But the euphoria from that landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision has turned to anxiety for members, advocates, and allies of the community.
As the presidential campaign heats up, so has public sentiment against those in the margins of society -- immigrants, people of color, non-Christians and the LGBTQI+ -- scapegoated for the country’s troubles predictably by some candidates and their surrogates.
“We’re very concerned about the November election,” Shirl Tan told Positively Filipino. “We’ve seen how Roe v. Wade has been repealed after all this time. What if an anti- LGBTQI+ candidate wins or if community opponents take the majority in the U.S. Congress? What will they undo next?”
Basic human rights are at risk, said Africa, who observes trends with trepidation.
“We are at a place where many people’s rights are being challenged and taken away, and I think psychologists and people in the behavioral health field have a role in changing that,” he pointed to his unique capacity and platform.
“We should be social justice advocates and policy leaders. We should be in the front lines and be stronger advocates because there is so much injustice out there,” he often says. “Our right to exist continues to be threatened every day. Our mere existence is threatening to others.”
Now as then, safety is primary priority.
For January 2022 to January 2024, the advocacy group GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism found at least 66 religion-based attacks for perceived support of the community.
Diverse places of worship that show support have also attracted attacks by detractors, said GLAAD.
Kapwa Cultural Center co-founder Stephanie Balon staffs the resource table of the SMC Behavioral Health & Recovery Services’ Filipino Mental Health Initiative at SMC Pride community fair. (Photo by Cherie M. Querol Moreno)
Visible Support
It’s June, and Pride flags are flying around the world where freedom lives, albeit at escalated risk these days.
Since 1978, when the iconic rainbow flag first unfurled, a more inclusive iteration designed by Daniel Quasar debuted in 2018 to expand the diversity of the LGBTQI+ community. Called Progress Pride Flag, it expresses identity, solidarity and resistance to prejudice and discrimination.
Mayor Coleman hoisted the emblem to open Pride Month on June 1 in his town for all-day citywide activities, with a free concert by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, skating in an outdoor roller rink, and drag performances. The striking standard was raised Monday morning, June 3, at the County Center in Redwood City, the seat of San Mateo County. Over in Filipino bastion Daly City, Mayor Juslyn Manalo presided at the Progress Pride flag-raising to end the work week on June 7.
Daly City Mayor Juslyn Manalo documents her first participation in the SMC Pride march. (Photo courtesy of Mayor Juslyn Manalo)
California evidently is the antonym for Florida, whose governor and “extreme legislators” were condemned by the country’s largest LGBTQI+ civil rights organization Human Rights Campaign for “signing a slate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills designed to scale back the freedoms of LGBTQ+ people and other vulnerable communities.”
"Basic human rights are at risk," said Africa, who observes trends with trepidation.
Existential risks have not escaped Manalo.
“We need to stay active and ensure the right of LGBTQI+ communities are not taken away. We saw reproductive rights impeded just recently, nationally. Democracy is at stake in our nation,” she told Positively Filipino hours after joining her first San Mateo Pride parade.
San Mateo County Pride Celebration draws multigenerational turnout. (Photo by Cherie M. Querol Moreno)
Though disturbed by the curbing of LGBTQI+ rights and the demonizing of its members, Africa is buoyed by the community spirit displayed through the decades. Friends who catch him in a rare spare time likely end up trading strategies to overcome simmering hostility for their population.
“We are a resilient community,” he reminded. “We have seen what we can achieve.”
To Shirl Tan, who with her wife, Jay Mercado, became accidental activists just by staying together amid legal challenges to their union, no act of kindness is too small to assure support for the ostracized.
On one of her walks through her Pacifica neighborhood, for example, she came upon a home with Pride flags fluttering along its driveway. She received the message clearly:
“It told me I’m home, I belong.”
PF Correspondent Cherie Querol Moreno founded ALLICE in 2003 and serves as executive director. For more information, visit www.allicekumares.com.
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